---
title: A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock. — Three hundred Aesop’s fables · tree and pragmatics
description: A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock. A sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, sentence 100

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A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock.

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**What happens:** seek, bring back · **To what, where:** GOATHERD, stray goat, flock

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This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg21:4:100
# text = A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	GOATHERD	goatherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sought	seek	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	back	back	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	stray	stray	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | past · perfect · passive |  | a GOATHERD |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **bring back** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | a stray goat |  | Goat's flock |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent goat=Theme to flock=Destination |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 21 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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